Monday, January 14, 2008

The face of terror

I know it's hard to believe it when you look in his eyes, but Mac Daddy has been an absolute nightmare during the wee hours. He starts crying and batting my face and trying to nip at my nose or chin to get me up. This was starting around 5:30am or 6 but in the past week, it's been at 3:48am, 1:30am, you get the idea. This has been going on for about six weeks and I'm feeling more and more raggedy.

I thought he was just really eager for his wet food breakfast so I'd get up and give him a snacklet. Well, after hoovering it, he just starts in again. Every couple of hours, he is unrelenting in his attempts to wake me up. All. Night. Long.

In a way, I'm a prisoner in my bed. I feign sleep, trying to breathe regularly and remain absolutely still, because sometimes I can trick him into thinking I'm still asleep and he'll curl up next to me for an hour or two. But while I lay there waiting for him to back off, I'm hyper-aware of him because if he gets to close to my face, I know it's only a matter of time before he goes for my face with his paw or fangs. It's only fun until someone loses an eye, you know?

I have begun to think that he just wants me to get up. The other morning, I got up and moved to the couch. He promptly jumped into bed and sacked out. Does he think I'm trespassing on his turf? What is going on?

3 comments:

try giving him some Rescue Remedy (the kind without alcohol). My vet once advised me to use it when my cat was stressed out about a new cat in the house. It just calms them down...it doesn't knock them out. just a couple of drops in the food or water.

My cat did this for awhile. And it turned out that my roommate was giving her cat treats at 5:00 a.m. every morning. But Pepper (the cat, not the roommate) decided she wanted more pet treats. MORE! And earlier! And often! Extremely, all the time, often. And extremely earlier. I am not a morning person, and the only way I want to see 3:00 a.m. is coming at it from a really great night out. I solved it by not giving her treats or wet food in the morning. (And moving, but that's another story.) It took a few days, but she got over herself. Well, as over herself as a cat with a past-life as a French courtesan can get, at any rate.